I enjoyed reading Robert Harris' "Fatherland" recently and found it particularly interesting because I'm also starting to work on an 'alternate history' type of story. In Harris' case, the premise is that Hitler won the war and the story is a mystery that plays out in the Germany and Europe of 1964. President Kennedy is about to visit Berlin...President Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., that is (JFK's father who in reality was U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 until late 1940).
Here are some of Harris' strategies for making his story plausible even though we know history took a different turn:
- He used a number of actual historical incidents, like the Wannsee Conference about the "final solution," to mix with his fictional ones. Many of the players, like Reinhard Heydrich and Odilo Globocnik were real (in the afterward, Harris tells what happened to them).
- His made-up incidents seem like logical extensions of what actually happened. For instance, the senior Kennedy admired Hitler and was anti-Semitic. And Harris' descriptions of Berlin in 1965 were based on the post-war plans for the city developed by Albert Speer under Hitler's supervision.
- He revealed the fictional historical developments a bit at a time.
- He grounded the story in universal emotions. Ultimately it's a story about a flawed protagonist pursued by forces worse than he is, who has a chance at some measure of redemption. That's a great theme that works in any setting or time.
I'd call it a good workmanlike novel--some of the characterizations, especially the female lead, are thin--and for anybody interested in this sub-genre, worth a look.
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